Pencil Shavings Have Never Looked This Beautiful
Most desk objects get ignored. They sit there doing their one job, collecting dust around the edges, and we never really think about them again….
Concept Designs
The Projector Concept That’s Almost Too Beautiful to Use
Most concept designs exist to generate buzz, collect awards, and then quietly disappear. The BeoLens Horizon, a projector concept imagined by French industrial designer Baptiste…
This E Ink Foldable Phone Concept Punishes Doomscrolling by Design
Most smartphones are designed to be impossible to put down. The screen faces up on every table, the display lights up for every notification, and…
When Your Speaker Is Also a Puzzle, Music Hits Different
Most speaker designs ask a pretty simple question: how do we make this thing louder and smaller? Merge asks a completely different one. How do…
A Wind-Powered Tumbleweed That Heals the Desert as It Rolls
I have to be upfront: I did not expect a tumbleweed to be one of the most exciting design concepts I’d encounter this year. Tumbleweeds,…
This Fan Made the Sony-Nintendo Handheld the Companies Never Would
The retro handheld market has a strange problem. The hardware keeps getting better, the screens get sharper, the processors get faster, and yet most of…
This Origami Stool Has No Legs, No Bolts, and Opens With One Press
Furniture storage is one of those problems that design has mostly surrendered to square footage. You either have room for a stool, or you don’t,…
What If Google’s Server Heat Became Its Most Prominent Design Feature?
Most conversations about Big Tech and sustainability follow a familiar script: a company announces a carbon pledge, releases an environmental report full of impressive-sounding numbers,…
A Student Built a Pocket Planet Tracker That Works Without Your Phone
Most of us have looked up at the night sky at some point and felt that brief, humbling recognition that there is an enormous universe…
Board Game Concept Teaches Toddlers Before Anyone Rolls a Die
Most children’s board games follow the same unspoken contract: open the box, unfold the board, arrange the pieces, and then, finally, play. The setup is…
This Panda-Faced Action Camera Might Finally Get Kids Off Their Tablets
Kids are natural documentarians. Long before anyone hands them a camera, they’re narrating adventures out loud, pointing at bugs, dragging adults toward things worth seeing….
Chess Hasn’t Looked Like This in a Thousand Years
Chess has been redesigned hundreds of times. Most attempts stay within the same visual vocabulary: carved figures, medieval references, stylized horses and crowns. The king…